Writing Update: Building A World Edition

While “The Cult of Eternal Darkness (Library Series: Book Three)” is in the QA phase, I am working on the writing for the third volume in The Orin Chronicles series. I’ve written no more than 35,000 words of the story so far and I’ve already found myself with pages of lore notes. As I write the third volume, I have become increasingly interested in shaping the world and determining where I want this series to go.

The Orin Chronicles was designed with a certain goal in mind and, while I intend to stay true to that goal, a goal is only the beginning. It is from this goal that the characters and the world and the story of the series arises. In order to provide a good experience, there needs to be a certain amount of direction. Even if it’s a new adventure every week (which is a lot of fun) it eventually has to tie together in Volume 13.

At the moment I’m thinking about how that will happen and I’m roughly planning the volumes that occur beforehand. With each new volume that plan is likely change, but it will be evolving rather than changing randomly. Gram and Selena, two of the Knights from Volume 2, are very important characters that I didn’t know at all during the writing of Volume 1. Now that they exist, the events of the story have changed.

So I’ll plan the journey from here to Volume 13 and with each new volume from here to Volume 11 or so, that plan will continue to evolve. I truly don’t know how the series will end, unlike what I did with the Library Series, so I’m a little concerned. Even so, I’m confident that the ending will be satisfying because of the investment I have in the series. Even though it is a fun series where I get to write something new every month, it’s more than just that. It’s something I take very seriously and so I’ll probably spend the rest of today troubling myself over the series as a whole and its long term future which I will now discuss.

Early on, I thought it would be fun to keep the possibility of a “Season 2” of The Orin Chronicles open so that one day I could say “surprise, here’s the next part of this story”. However, because I don’t know whether or not I will write a Season 2 I decided against mentioning it. And now that I’m mentioning it… well, it’s safe to say there will be more.

The Orin Chronicles is a massive series and 13 volumes can only tell so much. More than anything, The Orin Chronicles as a 13-volume series is a beginning of The Orin Chronicles as a much larger series. Once this story is over, there will be more stories in the world of Orin and on the planet of Argel. Will there be more stories about Marcus, Anira, and Archin? I won’t say at this point because I don’t know.

However, I think seeing The Orin Chronicles continuing monthly installments after Volume 13 is uncertain. What currently is “The Orin Chronicles” will end in November 2013 when Volume 13 is published. Where the series goes from there… I can’t say. But, here are a few ideas that I have in mind.

*Character and Event based novels: Instead of telling a story over the course of a year, it will all be told in one novel focusing on something more specific.

*Second series: One day there may be more monthly installments, but they’ll be separate from the current plot and branded as something similar to “Season 2”.

*Something entirely different: I have no idea what this could be, but I’m putting it here anyway!

*A combination of all of the above: The Orin Chronicles has a massive setting and there are a large number of stories to be told. It wouldn’t be strange to see more serialized releases, full-length novel releases, short stories, poems (are you sure, Reyskaw?), etc. about that setting. For now I am focused on these 13 volumes, but I’ll definitely return to the world of Orin at some point whether that be a few years from now or many.

For now, it’s off to writing the third volume and planning what lies ahead.